


you're my golden hour (the color of my sky)

by yellingatbabylon



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Music Festival, ashton gets emo watching lorde perform, just so much fluff, like it's definitely based off what i imagine coachella to be like, look ANOTHER place i can post fic and be bad at tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellingatbabylon/pseuds/yellingatbabylon
Summary: “Thinking about me?”He giggles at Luke’s teasing words, feeling his cheeks warm some more than they already were. Ashton shifts some to get Luke to sit up and look at him. He can’t help the calloused hand that falls to his cheek, his thumb running along his cheekbone, beneath his tired, happy blue eyes. “Always.”
Relationships: Luke Hemmings/Ashton Irwin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	you're my golden hour (the color of my sky)

**Author's Note:**

> baby's first time posting on ao3 !
> 
> basically there's a super sick festival that i've gone to in my city during uni and OF COURSE it's not happening this year so Luke and Ash are going to go to a festival instead and then also get a little emo watching Lorde bc I wrote this in the middle of the night and my spotify shuffled into Melodrama and...here we are.
> 
> special thanks and love to [helen](https://calumcest.tumblr.com/) for being the cheerleader i have NO IDEA what i did to deserve and really just warming my heart by yelling in comments on doc and for the playlist she sent this morning that got me through the workday.
> 
> i can be found over at my tumblr [here](https://tirednotflirting.tumblr.com/) !
> 
> x

Ashton smiles, feeling the stretch in his cheeks from laughter and the sun that’s been shining on his face all day, and wonders if there was any way at all to top the feeling he’s experiencing right now.

It had been a long but good day. He watches the sun set over the desert horizon, his view waving from the heat from his spot on a quilt in the middle of the festival. Behind him he hears the beginning of some EDM set starting on the opposite side of the festival grounds, the earth just barely shaking from the bass. People pass him from behind as a large crowd begins to form some 100 feet in front of him. It had been a tiring and warm afternoon and evening, and while he was excited to hear this set, it wasn’t anyone he was a _huge_ fan of, so he had made the executive decision to find a good spot back in the area that allowed chairs and sitting.

He watches flags and totems teeter around in the wind, the light breeze cooling the back of his neck. It was nearing the end of the second night of the festival and as he felt the dull ache in his ankles from walking and jumping around all day, he wonders to himself how the hell he is meant to manage another day of this. Maybe he would ask around once everyone got back to the house later in the night if anyone else was feeling their age and maybe wanted to head to the grounds a little ways into the afternoon for the last day? He sighs as he lifts his eyes toward the desert sky knowing that the answer would be a clap to his shoulder and the shaking of heads, his merry band and accompanying crew always somehow maintaining the energy level of 8 year olds when they came down for the festival.

Though he definitely did understand where they were coming from. He wasn’t sure how, but every time he found himself at a music festival (as a fan rather than a performer) the child-like, effortless joy of going to a show would surge through him. The big, sprawling crowds that if he saw in any other context would give him mountains of anxiety, felt like a breath of fresh air even as he snuck his large body between those around him to get closer to the action. The euphoria of a late night set, the only lights being those coming from the stage, with thousands of people all singing along to a song that meant something unique and new to each and every one of them. There was a special kind of magic brought into the world only by running around festival grounds in the desert with tens of thousands of people for a few days every spring. It was the kind of magic Ashton wished he could bottle up to save for cold, late autumn days when he was cooped up in his house, trying to remember what the memories really _felt_ like. 

He leans back then, clasping his hands behind his head to rest on, and recalls on the previous day. It had been awhile since the band had had the opportunity to go to a festival obligation-free and they were fully taking advantage of that chance. A house had been rented closer to the city where the festival was held, friends were invited, a grocery list divided up. They spend the Thursday night before the three day festival all trading stories of recent travels and adventures around a fire pit. It was fun to hear what mischief everyone had been up to while they were out on the road. 

(Though if Ashton were being honest, he didn’t recall much of what was said following his trip to the kitchen with Luke about halfway through the night when the blonde had snuck in a kiss after shots with Calum. Ashton wasn’t sure if he was more shocked by the action or the lime juice that got left on his lips.)

The morning was spent divvying up snacks and sunscreen, emptying water bottles and tucking flasks into backpack pockets less likely to be checked by security. Or at least that’s what Calum and Ashton got up to while Luke and Michael pressed glitter stickers to their own faces before invading the kitchen to do the same to their boys. All in the spirit of the festival, the former two decided as they giggled while shooting stars and hearts were pressed to their cheeks.

They spend the day mostly just the four of them, the rest of their party having other people to catch up with or promotional obligations for their work to attend to. The merry band of Aussies would never admit it in front of anyone else but they really always preferred to attend shows just the four of them. There was a silent energy that wrapped around them when attending a concert, the same kind of whisper that had brought them together to make music together in the first place. They thrived on it, rode the feeling like a high of sorts.

That first night Michael and Calum decide they want to grab a drink just before the last set of the night is meant to start so they make the choice to just stick to the VIP section until the end of the show. Luke kept on glancing between Ashton, the direction Michael and Calum have just wandered toward, the crowd forming for the show, and back to Ashton so it doesn’t take long for him to place a hand to Luke’s back and guide him in the direction of the sprawling crowd.

Luke had been sipping from a flask throughout the evening and was sufficiently loose and giggly as they find a spot in the middle of the crowd as darkness settled over the grounds. They’re talking through ideas for which sets they should hit the following day when the roar of the crowd picks up as a cue that something is about to happen. Ashton’s lifted his left hand to cup around his mouth to project his yells along with the rest of the crowd and when he moves to raise his right, he finds the limb stuck in place. He looks down to see Luke’s fingers tucked between his own and lifts his eyes to the dazed, happy look settled into his pale eyes. He let a smile pull across his own face and his fingers squeeze around Luke’s hand as Lorde’s dreamy voice floats over the crowd, bright green lights illuminating their faces to tell them what she’d chosen to begin the set with.

Ashton had always felt a special kind of connection to the younger singer’s bright and exaggerated lyrics. The romanticization of youth and glittery nights that flow through her lyrics spoke to him in ways he always wished he could express in his somewhat younger years, the brilliance of being young and in love with _everything_ something that their style of pop back in the day just couldn’t capture in quite the same light. Hearing the songs he was listening to in years prior, when he was pining after the boy just to his right, unable to express just how _big_ his feelings were at the time, it all has his mind spinning. 

She starts ‘Ribs’ up on the stage some ways in front of them, the gentle crooning of **_it drives you crazy, getting old_** feeling more poignant than normal in that particular moment. The lyrics feel heavy, though light at the same time, like his youth is drifting away in the desert wind while his age - though still quite young, Ashton does recognize - settles onto his shoulders like a heavy coat. **_It feels so scary, getting old_** floats through his mind when he feels a pair of arms wrap around his waist.

“Stop thinking so hard, old man,” Luke says in his ear above the crowd’s singing. He lets his lips pout against the little hoop through Ashton’s ear lobe before he continues. “It scares me too, but just...live in this for a bit.”

Ashton’s eyes close, the bright colored lights from the stage bleeding through his lids, and he sighs when he feels Luke’s stubble against his cheek when he moves to press a kiss to his temple before returning to bobbing along to the beat of the song. He’ll never understand the way the blonde is able to hear the racing of his thoughts though it's something he’s always been gifted with. Ashton is thankful for it, that Luke somehow knows exactly when to step in to ease his mind for a moment. He’s not sure what he would do without it.

They dance and yell and sing songs about being 19 despite being very solidly in their mid-20s for another hour before the set is over and the desert is lit up with the tall bright white lights above the grounds. They stumble into each other as they laugh and sing, eventually finding Michael and Calum along the way and pressure them into the same actions. Next thing they know, the four boys have piled into a car, repeatedly falling asleep against one another and the plushy seats of the car until they make it home. 

The only sober one in the bunch, Ashton plants his boys at the kitchen island, making them all drink a few glasses of water and pass a bottle of aloe gel around to rub at the back of their necks to minimize the griping about sunburns the next day. 

(It takes approximately three seconds of whining before Ashton gives in and pats the cool gel into Luke’s neck, chuckling at his whines at how cold it is. A babbling Calum leans his head against Ashton’s bicep while he performs the action and tells him a story about some actor that him and Michael met backstage who bought them shots and knew one of their songs other than “She Looks So Perfect” and “Youngblood”.)

The remaining residents of the house have either ended up at after parties (how people can attend after parties on each night of the festival and still make it all the way to the end is wild, Ashton thinks) or at other houses in the area so Ashton makes sure to lock up after they all vacate the kitchen before heading up to his room on the next floor up.

He’s just slipped into the bed and clicked off the lamp when he hears his phone buzz on the bedside table. He squints against the light from the screen before his features soften as he opens up the picture Luke must have snapped of him toward the end of the Lorde set. He’s in the middle of laughing through the joy of hearing a song he loves, pink lights from the stage illuminating his face. The picture is accompanied by a caption that makes his heart drum some kind of hurried rhythm despite how simply its worded:

_you looked so bright_

Ashton sits up from the blanket as he hears a drum beat pick up from the stage up ahead, the crowd rising both in volume and height as those who were waiting get to their feet. The lovely breeze he had been enjoying while reminiscing on the day before dies off a bit as it gets blocked by those moving to stand. As a familiar guitar rhythm starts up, he closes his eyes and smiles, still caught up in this gorgeous, delicate moment that he feels so lucky to be somehow living in.

However, Ashton realizes then, as a water bottle gets placed in his lap and a second body drops to his right, that there was in fact a way to top how he was feeling just a few minutes before. The sun has just made its final descent below the horizon when he turns to see the smile spread across Luke’s sun-kissed cheeks. 

“You were looking a little spaced out there, Ash,” Luke laughs as he pokes at Ashton’s cheek before shuffling a bit closer and wrapping his arms around his neck and leaning in to press a kiss to the sun-warmed skin beside the condor just below his tangled black hair. The high of another music filled day and the tequila in Luke’s belly have him throwing caution to the California wind in terms of displaying his affection. Ashton figures the darkness provided by the hour and the low number of people that had come up to ask for photos throughout the weekend so far were enough justification to allow the tipsy, happy blonde to continue pecking at his neck. “Thinking about me?”

He giggles at Luke’s teasing words, feeling his cheeks warm some more than they already were. Ashton shifts some to get Luke to sit up and look at him. He can’t help the calloused hand that falls to his cheek, his thumb running along his cheekbone, beneath his tired, happy blue eyes. “Always.”

When Luke leans in to press his forehead against Ashton’s own, the crinkles beside his eyes just visible in the flashing lights from the stage far up ahead of them, he finds himself wishing he could bottle up this kind of magic too.

(What kind of magic this exactly is, he has yet to figure out. Though Ashton thinks he maybe might have a word for it. Maybe.)


End file.
